Alice Cooper ruffled just a few feathers in 1969 when his followers killed a reside hen at Toronto’s Rock and Roll Revival Competition.
“The viewers tears it to items,” Cooper recalled this week on A&E’s Biography: Alice Cooper. “It was the peace and love competition. They tear it to items and throw it again up on the stage, so there’s blood in every single place – feathers and blood.”
Rumors started to unfold that he’d purposely pulled the stunt on the College of Toronto’s 20,000-capacity Varsity Stadium, and even that he’d drunk the hen’s blood. It did not take lengthy for phrase to achieve Cooper’s label boss Frank Zappa, who known as the subsequent day.
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“Did you kill a hen onstage final evening?” Cooper remembers Zappa asking. “I stated, ‘There was a hen. I did not kill it, although.’ He goes, ‘Do not inform anyone. They find it irresistible.’ He says, ‘It is in every single place within the press!’ I instantly went, ‘Excellent.’ The hen story then grew to become enormous: ‘Who is that this monster who would do that at a rock present?'”
Seems, this complete factor was only a massive misunderstanding. “You must keep in mind I am from Detroit,” Cooper says. “I had by no means been on a farm in my life. It had wings, it had feathers – it ought to fly. I picked up the hen and I flung it into the viewers, figuring it could fly away and any individual would take it and take it house and name it ‘Alice Cooper.'”
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In fact, that is not what occurred. Chickens are flightless birds. “I threw it on the market,” Cooper acknowledges, “and it fell straight down into the viewers.”
The gang in Toronto that day included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Cooper stated the decidedly avant-garde couple authorized. “They thought it was artwork – as a result of it is chaos,” he added. Nonetheless, the rumors continued and in some instances have been expanded upon, at the same time as animal rights activists gathered earlier than Cooper’s live shows.
“My repute was simply insane. I did not must do something,” Cooper admits. “They have been inventing their very own Alice Cooper delusion. Individuals have been simply discovering Alice Cooper, and I used to be simply discovering him – so we have been all doing it on the similar time.”
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Gallery Credit score: Lauryn Schaffner
